


gonna get yourself in trouble with that mouth

by shortitude



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28371801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: There is a revolution coming, brewing right under the noses of Alpha Station. It’s a quiet and secret thing, but it is powerful - one hundred strong by now.It’s disappointing that she did not figure it out sooner.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Raven Reyes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Ravenbell New Year Fanfiction Exchange (2020)





	gonna get yourself in trouble with that mouth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justbecauseyoubelievesomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/gifts).



> My entry to the Ravenbell New Year Fic Exchange 2020. The prompt was: Canonverse Ark AU; Bellamy and Raven meet as adults on the Ark because they both join the same secret revolutionary group planning to overthrow Alpha Station; other Delinquents can definitely make appearances!
> 
> I hope I did your request justice!

**50.**

There is a revolution coming, brewing right under the noses of Alpha Station. It’s a quiet and secret thing, but it is powerful - one hundred strong by now. 

It’s disappointing that she did not figure it out sooner.

**12.**

Today marks the first celebration of The Selection Process. It’s Chancellor Shumway’s idea of creating a circulation of talent throughout the Ark. The way she presents it to her people over the central comms is that from now on, once a year, a selection of young people from each Sector will be reassigned to a different Sector according to their talents. 

“She just wants to make sure we won’t remember,” Raven says to Finn as she watches him pack, dutifully, for his new life on Alpha. “Like it’s possible to just brainwash three thousand people like this. We were all there when she took over, we all saw when they floated Jaha - hell, Finn, she broadcasted the fucking event. It’s not like some -”

“Raven,” Finn interrupts, rushing up to stop her hands from gesticulating, throwing a wary glance over her shoulder at the hallway behind her. “You know words carry here, Raven.” 

“Right,” she mutters. “Can’t have the Generalisima thinking we don’t like her.” 

“You’re gonna get yourself in trouble with that mouth,” Finn says, and it’s a ghost of what he used to say three years ago, when they first got together. It brings a small smile to both their faces, one that quickly fades when the bittersweet reality sinks in. This will be the last time she gets to be in Finn’s quarters, the last time he’s on Mecha. It’s like breaking up with him all over again. 

“Don’t get in trouble,” she murmurs, pulling him into a tight hug. 

“I’m not the one with a tendency towards brawls and explosions,” he teases, hugging her back, just as tightly. No matter what - and this is something she is so grateful for - they have always been better friends than they were lovers. 

“I’ll grow as a person,” she promises, quick on the follow-up. “Only sanctioned brawls on Friday, and controlled explosions. You’ll see.” She sniffs. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll write.”

“You won’t,” she says. “But thanks for promising it anyway.”

**30.**

“Did you hear they’re closing down Ares Sector?” 

Monty Green is a delightful poker player to have at your table, Raven decides for the fourth time this month. He has that unassuming stoner smile, and is a subtle cheater, but most importantly - he talks. He loves running his mouth so much, and does it with such elegance, that no Guard has ever been able to pin anything on him. Nobody ever wants to admit that they paid attention to a rumour from Green. 

“Any inhabitants even left there?” she asks, dealing him in. 

“Maybe thirty at most, they’re gonna be absorbed into Factory.” There is a pause, as Monty considers his cards, and smiles at Raven from across the table. “Makes you kinda wonder, doesn’t it?”

Raven raises one eyebrow, waiting for the punchline. 

“What’s so wrong with Ares that the Chancellor’s willing to shut down the Ark’s armory?”

“Maybe she has all the guns she needs for her Guards,” comes the practically grunted reply from Nathan Miller, who is fiddling with an old coin, biding his time before he places his bet. Nate thinks that if he stalls, and broods, his opponents will think he’s got a good hand. Raven knows that Nate has zero poker face and it takes him double the effort to not show a good hand - the harder the brood, usually, the better he’s off. 

“It’s probably a system failure,” Raven dismisses, and taps the table with her knuckles. “Are you ladies playing or do you have more gossip to share?”

**32.**

“Reyes, you’re on oxygen tanks this week.” 

There’s a twitch in the corner of Raven’s eye, from the effort of not flat out scowling at the news. Oxygen tanks are inside work, Ark work. Oxygen tanks maintenance takes forever, gets dirty, and pays like shit despite the vital role they play on the Ark’s survival. 

Oxygen tanks are also child’s play, and boring, and Raven is so tired of being bored. But the closer it gets to Selection Process, the more each station tries to flex its might, while simultaneously not wanting to show their strongest players. 

She might not like being stuck on oxygen for the next week, but she gets why her boss chose her for it. It’ll keep her out of sight of the Process, and keep Raven Reyes firmly in Mecha. And, of course, wherever else they might want her to go. 

“You’ll want to get the suit - we’ve received orders to start with the shut-down stations first.” 

The groan finally slips. 

**34.**

“Reyes, what’s taking so long?”

The comms piece in her ear is the only thing that makes noise in the shut down, dark hallways of Ares Station. Even her footsteps sound muted as she moves down towards where her nav screen tells her the oxygen tanks are located. 

“I don’t get why there’s a point in keeping oxygen tanks functional if there’s nobody living here anymore,” she grumbles to herself, then clicks the mic on to tell her boss: “Hold your horses, you can’t rush genius.” 

“I can dock genius’s pay if genius continues to be a pain in my ass.” 

_Go on, I dare you. I’ll kick your fucking ass._ “Aye, aye, captain. Tanks in sight, reporting back when I’m done.” 

From the silence on the other end of the line, Raven decides that her supervisor is pleased with her response, so she switches the comms piece off. 

That’s when the lights in the hallway to her left flicker. 

**2.**

In the late stages of Chancellor Jaha’s reign over the Ark, there is an uprising on Factory. A seamstress is caught harboring a second child, a young girl, whose name all have but forgotten, raised under floorboards and ignorant of the world outside the four walls of her family’s quarters. 

During Unity Day, the girl is caught at the Ark-wide dance, her ID non-existent.

The girl, her brother, and mother are all locked up pending trial, with view towards floating. Factory is in outrage; there are protests, and strikes, there is violent resistance, and ambassadors sent to Alpha to plead mercy for at least the girl, whose only fault is in being born. 

The compromise is in line with the level of mercy typical of Jaha: they offer the mother a chance to out the father of the second child, in exchange for imprisonment for ten years, with her daughter. 

They float the father - some piece of trash Guard who claims he wanted nothing to do with the bitch or her sprog, all the way to the proverbial executioner’s block. 

The girl and the mother disappear - Factory’s uprising quelled with the reassurance that they have not been killed, and they will be given a fair re-trial in ten years time. 

There is little known of the brother following this. Demoted to janitorial work, as the rumour mill goes.

**35.**

“Jesus fucking Christ almighty.”

She is so glad that her comms piece is out right now, because the words come bursting out of her mouth as soon as she sees the containment cells. 

Rows of them, lining the walls of what used to be Ares Station. Rows and rows of containment cells, as small as a fucking coffin, with people inside. Each cell has a computer to keep track of vitals, and from a quick (and panicked) skim through the software, Raven can tell that they’re pretty much self-suficient. 

It’s the perfect prison. No guards are needed, no medical staff - all the people in these cells are asleep - likely have been asleep for years. 

“Fuck me.” 

She looks over her shoulder, listening for noise - Ares Station rests dead as a tomb. With that morbid reassurance, she turns her attentions back to the screen and reads the name of the sleeper inside the cell: 

_Octavia Blake_

**36.**

The biggest question is _why_. Why bother hiding the fact that instead of floating, the Council and Chancellor have decided to put every wrong-doer under. Why relocate an entire station elsewhere to clear it, why pretend it’s shut down if you’re going to send mechanics to do maintenance of the oxygen tanks anyway? 

There are a hundred cells at least, and not all of them are full. 

She’s found Octavia and Aurora Blake in the back, maybe the first two to be put in here, with a few more whose names she recognises from the crime reports that Shumway’s been reading out on the central comms. 

_Our generosity and understanding has limitations. We expect good behaviour from all Arkers, and remember - we are all in this together._

She hears those words - that stupid slogan - repeated over and over, as she moves from one cell to the next, checking vitals and checking names. 

It takes about an hour to memorise them all. 

**37.**

“Don’t shut your comms again, Reyes, this is your last warning,” snaps her supervisor in greeting. Then, “Are you alright, girl? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

_Snap out of it. Act cool._

“It’s the pleasure of seeing your face again, boss,” she drawls in reply, and hurries to take the suit off. 

Her report on the oxygen tanks maintenance on Ares is complete and utter made-up bullshit. But who’s going to check if she lied? Alpha clearly wants to keep Ares locked up and secret. 

The cells’ computers will ring the alarm if anything goes wrong. 

**38.**

Her mother having been who she was, Raven Reyes doesn’t make it a habit to buy people drinks. It’s pretty obvious that she wants something, and she’s not going to disrespect Miller by pretending that she’s here to flirt with him. 

Instead, she slides one glass of moonshine over to him, takes a seat, and goes for the jugular. 

“You know people, right? People in the Guard?”

To give him some credit, Nate takes a sip of moonshine first, before raising his eyebrows at him. “If by people you mean the father that’s no longer talking to me, sure. I know people.”

“You were a cadet, though.”

“For two weeks and a half. Why?”

“No reason.” She drums a quick little tune against the table, knee jerking in a betrayal of nerves. She shakes her head and leans in. “I’m looking for a guy. He used to be a cadet, but he was demoted some years ago - that whole uprising in Facto--”

“Shhhhut the fuck up, Raven,” Miller hisses, reaching out under the table to still her knee. “Don’t go running your mouth-”

“Rude, and also, fuck you -”

“What do you want with him? If it’s a lay, I can assure you he’s not cheap.”

“Aw, no, of course not, sweetie, that’s just you.” She slaps his hand away. “I just. I don’t know, I want to talk to him. That’s all.” 

“Right.” Miller shakes his head. “Can’t believe this from the woman who kicks my ass at poker. Just talk to him - sure.”

“Do you know him or not?”

**39.**

Her introduction to Bellamy Blake doesn’t happen.

Miller promises to keep an ear on the ground for her, but three days pass without any result. It’s for the best, honestly - she doesn’t know what to even say to the guy. _Hey, did you know that your mom and sister are being kept in stasis on Ares until further notice? Yeah, so anyway, bye._

She has nothing. It is frustrating to have nothing but loose pieces of a puzzle, and none of them fitting together - not even a picture for reference. Not even a puzzle. 

Since Bellamy Blake isn’t making contact, she decides to dig a little deeper. 

It’s on Tech where she finds it, buried deep in the belly of an old computer, an SD card with a single file on it. She doesn’t think much of it, honestly - a lot of computer techs leave things behind when they’re promoted, because they’re messy people apparently. 

She still takes the card, but waits until she’s in her quarters to turn it on. 

It’s an email from an old engineer, dated twenty years ago, directed at Jake Griffin. This part tracks; Griffin was the chief science officer of the Ark twenty years ago, so of course he got emails. What doesn’t track is the email itself. 

The report explains one thing to Raven: the number of senseless floatings that increased over the last two decades, together with the way they’re shutting down station after station, all comes down to the same common denominator - oxygen.

**46.**

It’s been two months since she discovered the containment cells on Ares, and she feels like she’s going insane. She has a million conspiracy theories swimming through her brain day and night, and only when she’s working does her brain shut up. 

It doesn’t help that she knows the fault in the oxygen tanks will eventually kill everyone on the Ark. It doesn’t help that she can’t stop wondering why even keep the people in stasis if there’s no clear path to wake them up. 

It doesn’t help that she’s on her own, and it certainly doesn’t help that the anniversary of her mother’s death is coming around the corner. 

She is, in short, distracted. 

Which is why, when Monty Green drops an invitation to a private poker game over on Agro, she doesn’t think twice and takes him up on it. 

It’ll do her good to socialise.

**50.**

It’s disappointing that she did not figure it out sooner.

“Heard you’ve been asking around about me,” are the first words that Bellamy Blake says to her, as she steps through the door with Monty. 

The room is crowded, ten people crammed inside with cards spread out on the table, and a map of the Ark on the wall. She takes it all in: the fact that someone’s dealt enough cards for five, and enough drinks for seven, that the map looks like it’s been drawn on the back of a painting that probably will get flipped around at the first sign of trouble, and that none of the attendees look either drunk or very much into playing poker right now. 

She also takes in the man whose name has been on her mind for the past two months. Bellamy Blake, in the flesh - the demoted janitor. He looks scruffy, tired, and serious. He looks like he fills his free time with doing pull-ups in his quarters or leading an underground revolution. 

He looks deceptively pretty, for a has-been. 

“Yeah,” Raven finally says, then nods towards the corner of the room. “Nate said you’re a cheap date.”

**17.**

_Dear Raven,_

_I told you I’d write._

_Alpha is nice, I finally got a job in the nursery. Apparently they’re all about nurturing the young minds with art, which works out well for me. I am trying out metal works for now - enclosed you’ll find a gift for you. Hope you don’t mind it’s not an accurate depiction of a raven, because - well, how would we know, right?_

_I am going to be honest with you now. I hope that you’ll take care of yourself. I know that you’re afraid of ending up like her, but you won’t. You have friends, Raven - you are kind, and smart, and a great friend. You shouldn’t deprive the world of your Ravenness, so please promise me you’ll try to make some friends?_

_I think I’m scared of you being lonely, mostly. Your genius mind is something to be feared when you’re lonely. Or scared. Or angry._

_Okay, always, always we must fear your genius mind._

_(I hope that made you smile a little bit.)_

_Take care - I’ll see you on Unity Day._

_Love,  
Finn_

**52.**

It’s the intel she has on the oxygen tanks that gets her a spot in the rebellion. 

She tries not to show how much it pleases her that she is a part of something, but she thinks that for some people, for those who have known her a while, it’s written clearly on her face.

**54.**

When you work the assembly line in Mecha, you end up doing all kinds of jobs, from the most intricate to the most menial. 

Tonight, she’s stuck working overtime, sorting the bolts by size when the late night cleaning shift walks into the workshop. She is so used to just working without paying attention, that she almost misses those unruly curls, and the wide shoulders. 

“Hey,” she says before she can stop herself. _Fuck. Great job acting cool, Raven_

Luckily, Bellamy is surprised enough by her acknowledging him that it actually keeps him quite in character as the janitor. “Did you need something?” 

She wonders if this has happened before. Him on the late night cleaning shift in her workshop, used to being ignored by the mechanics, the engineers. Probably by everyone. She wonders if he prefers it to mockery. She wonders why the hell she’s thinking so much about his feelings, instead of answering him. 

“Yeah, I just…” She rubs the back of her neck, and tries for something relatively believable. “I’ve seen you cleaning this workshop before, right?” she aims - look at her, so cool and collected, like a spy. “Blake, was it?”

“Bellamy,” he answers, leaning against his mop, with a quirk of his lips that could be considered a smile. “Really - you’re going with _hey, do you come here often_? Do they not teach you mechanics how to flirt?”

“What - hey - I’m not flirting. I’m - you’d _know_ if I were flirting with you,” she snaps, and deliberately goes back to sorting bolts. “Excuse me for wanting to thank you for cleaning well. You know, I really appreciate how you don’t try to clear the table of any stray pieces to achieve feng shui.”

“You’re...really bad at it,” comes Bellamy’s reply, amused. “The flirting. It’s incredible - I thought you were a genius?”

“Oh my god, just carry on and shut up.”

**57.**

“Gentlemen, are we playing poker or what?” 

Friday night, as is usual, Raven goes to meet Monty and Miller in the mess hall on Mecha for a game of poker - actual game, this time, because appearances must be kept. Usually, they are joined by a fourth player, on rotation according to whichever of Monty or Miller’s friends don’t hate them yet, and tonight that player is a familiar (and smug) face.

“Well, well, Bellamy.” She takes a seat across from him, and meets his smirk with one of her own. “Please don’t take my beating your ass as flirting.” 

“I won’t if you won’t, _Raven_.”

“When you’re done eye-fucking Raven,” Miller quips, uncomfortably, “can you _please_ just deal the fucking cards?”

**58.**

She is not drunk for this one. 

In fact, if she’s being perfectly clear, she hasn’t been drunk in years, cold turkey since her mother - but nevermind the honesty. She’s not drunk, she’s stone cold sober while she presses him against the door, her mouth hot on his neck, her fingers punching in the code to unlock the door. Stone cold sober when she pushes Bellamy into her quarters, smile sharp, possessive and public and convincing.

There’s something to be said about organising a rebellion: you have to make interactions believable. 

She lets him go as soon as the doors close, and turns on the lights. Waits for three seconds, until her privacy codes kick in, and then speaks. 

“Right, so what do you know about Ares Station being shut down?”

**59.**

Later that night, after a long conversation about what else Raven uncovered, she makes them tea. 

Bellamy tells her that Ares is the name of the Greek god of War, so it’s only fitting that the secrets contained within that station will be the spark that starts the next war.

She tells him that he can’t be there to witness his sister and mother waking up again if he’s dead. 

They’ll butt heads like this again in the future.

**60.**

Despite her supervisor’s best efforts, come Selection Process day, Raven gets a letter summoning her to relocate to Alpha. 

She wonders if this means that Shumway suspects something.

**62.**

Doctor Griffin signs the paperwork that confirms Raven’s clean bill of health. It’s taken ten years - doesn’t mean her heart murmurs any less, but Griffin practically scrubs those records clean. From one day to the next, Raven becomes the youngest Zero-G mechanic in 53 years. 

Her first spacewalk feels bittersweet. 

**63.**

The trouble with Alpha is that everyone is a politician, she realises quickly. 

Everyone has an angle, everyone wants something. Take Doctor Griffin: the woman clears her for active duty because she thinks that this way, Raven will feel like she owes her something. 

It takes her two weeks to come out and say it, and the way the demand is made is quite subtle; a power play. She’s been listening to enough of Bellamy’s speeches weekly to read the room. (Granted, she could’ve read the room before on her own too, but he makes her more suspicious of others.)

“It will be our little project for now,” Doctor Griffin explains, all hush hush, slipping Raven a memory card. “It’s been over a century since the Ark was launched. The Earth should be livable - I want you to find out if it is.”

Everyone’s got their own rebellion going on, apparently, on Alpha.

**70.**

“We’re not getting anywhere,” she snaps, mid-meeting, and it silences the room. “You’re all planning for a violent confrontation, and that’s likely, yes, but Shumway is only as strong as her security is. And either way, it doesn’t matter. _Everyone_ has their own little rebellion planned, and nobody’s got an actual plan, and you’re going to get people killed.”

She drops back into her chair, exhausted. “What happens when we overthrow her? What happens when our oxygen levels continue to drop, and we all just die? I don’t want an empty victory here. I’m tired of… all of this.”

“So,” says Monty after a bit. “Then what do we do?”

“We take the Ark down,” Bellamy answers, meeting Raven’s eyes from across the table. “We go down to Earth.”

**89.**

With the tools and resources she has at her disposal on Alpha, it takes Raven sixty days to build a probe, and nine days to launch it. 

The analysis are all conclusive: the planet is liveable enough. 

Next comes the hard part.

**98.**

The rebellion goes like this: 

Raven and Bellamy sneak into Ares Station, taking footage of all they find. (She allows Bellamy a moment alone in front of containment cells 002 and 003.)

Miller gets them access into the central comms system. Monty finds the video left by Jake Griffin before he was locked away (containment cell 001), confessing to the fault in the Ark’s system. 

They broadcast them both. 

Finally, a third video, broadcast live, of Raven advising the entire Ark that the Earth is survivable, and there is a way for everyone to live. It includes her plans and proposal to bring the Ark down, but she does not get to go through it; for one, there are few people on the Ark who would care to listen, and for two, that’s when the Guards come in to arrest her. 

The last twenty seconds of the video is just footage of Raven Reyes decking a Guard twice her size before grinning at the camera. 

**99.**

Chancellor Shumway’s reign ends, not because of the hundred few who dared to organise against her, but because the entire Ark collectively decides that they’re done listening. 

A Council is formed - with representatives from each station, all holding equal power - and the Chancellorship is declared unnecessary. 

And in the background, there is progress to land the Ark on Earth. And in the background, there is progress to wake all forty-six people up from stasis. 

And at the core of it all, there is hope for the future.

**100.**

“So,” she says, checking and double checking that she is strapped in correctly before looking over to the seat next to her. “You look good there, Councilor Blake.”

The robotic voice of the Ark counts down to the uncoupling. Across its many stations, people are doing exactly this: checking they’re strapped on, sending a prayer to whatever gods they believe in, and looking around them to check who the people they will spend the next few years with are. 

The solution to the problem with the oxygen was simple: leave. The solution to bringing down the whole Ark safely, on the other hand, required some creative thinking. And so it is that there are three stations of the Ark that have been fitted for landing, each with a seed bank and solar panels, each with supplies and doctors, each ready to make it down there even if they land miles and miles apart. 

They won’t - she knows this, she ran the numbers - but it’s still reassuring to be in the same station as the people who have, over the past year, come to mean so much to her. 

“Flirting with me, Raven?” Bellamy asks, smiling that infuriatingly pretty smile. 

She shifts in her seat, and juts her chin up defiantly. “ _Yes_ , actually. So what are you gonna do about it?”

**1.**

This is how the revolution starts.


End file.
